forced the bat's hilt upward into its gaping maw. A sound, rather like gagging, preceded the creature's arms slackening enough for King to escape. With a hefting swing, the bat connected with the creature's neck, the head held fast by a skin flap of rent flesh and spidery sinew. The creature's eyes followed him. Its mouth moved, tongue black and swollen, words voicelessly formed on its lips though without air enough to express them. In the throes of the brief loss of self accompanying a swift punch to the belly, King couldn't swallow and couldn't breathe. For a moment, King studied the still form, thinking he should feel something more, a vague sense of satisfaction or even vindication. But he felt nothing. Only the hollowness, the sense of waste that came with a pointless loss of life.
Only Merle knew that King had avenged the death of his father.
King waved Lott after him, following the path cut by Wayne. When they got into the main entryway doors, they ran the bat and crowbar through the door's handles to keep it wedged shut.
'That was easy enough.' King gulped in the dry air, his strength rushing back to his numb limbs. His skin flushed hot to the touch, a battle fever rushed through his system.
'Knock on wood or something.' Claw marks covered Wayne, chunks of flesh torn from his body. Blood coated his jeans, an ugly gash along his leg seen through his torn pants.
'No need. That was hardly its best. Merely its squires called home,' Merle said. 'The creatures were half-dead when we started. It was like they'd already done what they were called to do.'
'Like attack whoever got in their way?' Lott tottered on his feet, hands pressed against his thighs to steady himself until he caught his breath.
'Were they keeping us out or going for Night?' Wayne echoed.
'They were pawns used by both sides until they were used up. Look at them. They aren't even pursuing us now.' King reflected on what Omarosa had said, about Night getting his package off Dred's consignment thinking he was safe here at the Phoenix. Taking out a rival in a way that might bite the hand that fed him, but moving others to complicate and disarm or possibly just distract his rivals; now that opened up all new realms of possibility. It created a sea of uncertainty. Change the players, change the game. 'Dred's playing both ends against a useless middle.'
'What?' Wayne asked.
'Just piecing things together,' King said. 'All of this feels like a distraction, misdirecting us from the true objective.'
'You're learning,' Merle said.
'Never a true shortage of crack fiends no ways,' Lott said.
'We need to grab Rhee and get out.' Lady G tugged at King.
'Yeah, we need to keep going,' King said. 'We cut this off at the source and hope this whole nightmare ends.'
A bank of mail slots lined the foyer wall of the Phoenix Apartments building, each slot large enough for bills, collection notices, and subsidy checks. With the layout of an old elementary school and the design sense of a detention center, two hallways branched from there, each leading to elevators each with signs which perpetually read 'out of order' and stairwells whose lights had been busted out. As they essayed further into the building, King noticed bizarre symbols carved into the walls and seen within the swirls of graffiti letters to the discerning eye. The symbols were reminiscent of, though not exactly matching, the ones on the box which held his Caliburn. In the last vestiges of light, the tags for ESG had been spray-painted over with the letters 'ICU' within a circle.
A tremulous silence enveloped them, the palpable shadows thick as curtains. The dank odor of piss and sweat mixed with mildew hung cloyingly in the air. With so little light, the walls were cancerous with fungal growth. Women avoided walking the stairwell alone for fear of the shadow denizens grabbing and attacking them. Their nerves stretched like fine catgut, ready for a symphony of terror to be wrung from them, Lady G clutched after King's hand. Wayne stumbled in the darkness.
'You ain't got no kind of creep to you,' Lott whispered to Wayne.
'You know what the cops say?' King said.
'What?'
'It's like an underground world over here.'
'Hades,' Merle added.
'Everyone knows everyone,' Lady G said. 'So folks trying to hide can always find someone to let them in they apartment.'
'Always jumpin',' Wayne said.
'Got to learn to sleep through that mess,' Lott said.
King cocked his head in the direction of a sound he thought he heard. The darkness pooled all around them, a living thing in its own way, distorting sound and even their sense of balance. Their voices drifted apart, no one able to determine the location of another, though King's hand tightened around Lady G's. Again, the idea of sound tickled King's ears. An odd, indistinct skritch in the distance.
'Sh!' King said.
'What?'
'What part of 'sh' didn't you get?' King leaned toward the deepening shadows. 'You hear that?'
A whir, similar to the hum of current through a power line, thrummed along the walls. The croak began as a whisper. Had they still been outside, they would have seen the mouths of the remaining fiends moving in unison. The shadows swirled like a rushing wind. The apartment foyer, casket-dark and desolate, called out in a mouthless whisper.
'The endgame approaches. Good. So hungry. So tired.'
'What do you want?' King shouted at the darkness.
'We await the Pendragon. Alone.' The voice, ancient and weary, reverberated through them like a passing foul wind.
'Who are you?'
'I am what was. What won't be again. The Devourer of Dream. The Umbra Spirit.'
'The dragon,' Merle whispered.
'Show yourself!' King yelled.
'Prove yourself worthy of my attention. Be careful with my little squires.'
'Squires?' Lady G asked. 'You think he means them fiends?'
'I don't-' King's words were cut short by something hard falling and bouncing from his hand. 'What the…?'
A small pellet of some sort landed in Lady G's hair. When she went to swipe it away, it scuttled off on its own. She craned upwards. The shadows churned along the ceiling, brief shafts of light penetrating the wall as if a shifting dark sheet covered the light fixture. When she was about to proclaim her observation, a cockroach fell in her mouth. Its antennae brushed against the roof of her mouth as she gagged to expel it. An undulating wave rippled through, dislodging the insects all at once.
A shower of chitinous shells rained down on them, cockroach bodies pelting them where they stood. Millions of tiny legs created a cacophonous scratching, the bugs scrabbling over one another hitting the group in an obscene wave. Stiff hairs itched along Wayne's body, the soft crunch of bodies underfoot reminding him of treading on vials in alleyways. In his hair, in his clothes, he closed his eyes and covered his nose and mouth as he waded through the sea of roaches. In the wake of them skittering down the stairs, he still felt the sensation of bodies crawling within his clothes.
'It's toying with us,' King said.
'You know,' Lady G concurred.
'It will get worse from here,' Merle warned.
'I can't do this. Not with you here,' King told Lady G. He squeezed her hand and let her go.
'I won't leave you.' Her voice, full and low, resounded with a grim finality.
'I wouldn't ask you to. But I need to be able to do what I have to do, be who I have to be. I can't face him, whatever he is, and worry about you. And I don't know if I want you to see me be… what I must.' King turned to Lott. 'I'm trusting you to get her out of here and keep her safe.'
'You got it,' Lott said, then gave him a fist bump.
'Uh-uhn. You don't get to pass me off when I get inconvenient. And you don't get to sweep me under a rug.
